Global harmony through global competition

Before I move forward and indulge myself in the glory that is football season — even more… Before I move forward and indulge myself in the glory that is football season — even more inevitable now that the NFL Network is part of my cable package — I think some reflection is in order on one of the great spectacles in sport, the Olympic Games.

This year’s Olympics in Athens provided a lot of memorable moments, good, bad and ugly — mostly ugly if you weren’t adventurous enough to watch anything other than men’s basketball. But here are a few thoughts on the games of the 28th Olympics.

Enough whining, already.

I’m going to follow the South Park lead and blame Canada for this. As you may remember, in the Winter Olympics of 2002, Canadian figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier won silver medals. End of story.

Or it should have been, until the duo of complaining northerners were awarded matching gold medals because their routine was technically better than the actual gold-medal winners, the Russians, after having their axels and toe loops reviewed on video interminably by a panel.

The problem here is, figure skating is a subjective sport, and until 2002, the judges decided the winner. But because of our Canadian friends and their plea for “fairness,” a Pandora’s box was opened in Olympic competition.

Fast-forward to 2004, where gymnastics is the most prominent, subjective sport at the summer games. American Paul Hamm won the all-around gold medal, beating bronze medalist Yang Tae-young of South Korea by .049 points. But Tae-young and his country’s delegation noticed that he was incorrectly assessed a one-tenth point deduction by three judges on the parallel bars, leading Korea to appeal for at least a duplicate gold for Tae-young.

You lost in the arena, stop trying to win weeks after the competition is over! The same can be said for Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, who insinuated that there was an American bias in judging after losing the gold to Carly Patterson, an American.

I say it’s the fault of Tae-young and Khorkina and any other gymnast who wants to complain. After being fortunate enough to cover our own Pitt gymnastics team the last couple of years, I’ve learned that rarely do the competitors and coaches agree exactly with the scores given, but that’s the nature of the sport, so get over it. The judges made the call, you lost, end of story.

But then there are legitimate complaints.

If the International Olympic Committee has any sense whatsoever, the only appeal that they will waste any time listening to is that of Brazilian marathon runner Vanderlei de Lima. In case you missed it, de Lima was the victim of one of the most bizarre, tragic and, quite frankly, hilarious attacks in sporting history.

De Lima led the marathon by nearly 30 seconds with only a few miles remaining, when former priest Cornelius Horan, clad in an outfit fit for a Lucky Charms box, ran out of the crowd to do his best Jack Lambert impression (or perhaps Roy Keane, to keep the Irish theme going), tackling the runner into the crowd and forcing him to lose his lead.

De Lima rallied to win the bronze medal, and Brazilian officials seek only to gain a gold medal for their runner, not to knock down the placing of the gold and silver medalists. There are appeals panels in sports because of situations like this, not for people who feel wronged by judges.

Unpredictable races make good television.

Be honest. You had no idea who Justin Gatlin was two weeks ago. Now he’s the world’s fastest man. That’s what makes the Olympics fun — there’s no way of knowing what will happen.

Who knew the heavily favored U.S. women’s 4×100-meter relay team wouldn’t even finish the race because of a bad handoff?

Who saw another favorite, Canada’s Perdita Felicien, falling over the first hurdle in the 100-meter hurdle finals, taking out a Russian runner in the process?

The Olympics are great because it can make one person a national hero in a matter of seconds. It doesn’t matter if they’re a Chinese table tennis player — that’s beer pong without the beer — or a Bahamian sprinter, everyone has a chance to shine at the Olympics.

But is that a sport?

I don’t want to devalue anyone’s life work too much, but synchronized diving? How do these people make a living between Olympics? Is there a professional diving league I just don’t know about?

What about rhythmic gymnastics? Prancing about with ribbons, balls, and hoops is a sport now? I guess this is where Cirque du Soleil’s employees are before they turn pro.

And equestrian? Why do the jockeys get medals? It looks to me like the horse is the one doing the work. Some things I’ll just never figure out

In the end…

There’s nothing like the Olympics to bring the world together to do peacefully what we’ll spend the next four years doing aggressively — trying to beat up on other countries.

Seriously, the Olympics are a truly great spectacle of athleticism and unity throughout the world, and one of the few events that people around the globe can enjoy. So what if Tim Duncan and company choked, and the U.S. baseball and men’s soccer teams didn’t even qualify? There were enough success stories out there for America, and if you look, every nation had a hero out there, in one form or another.

I’m ready for Turin in 2006; are you?

Matt Grubba is a staff writer for The Pitt News, and he has no idea how many times he said “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” during the games. You can e-mail him at Grubba@comcast.net.